Comments on: Enigmatic Variations No. 863 – To Its Great Credit by Shark

By: Dave Hennings

Dave Hennings — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:42:53 +0000

Thanks for the explanation, Shark. I guess that means that highlighting just FRED PERRY, which I shaded distinct from the closed line, would be marked wrong! If you were talking about him, you might call him just Fred, but I think you’d say Frederick J; referring to him as Fred J would sound a bit naff!

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Sat, 30 May 2009 10:25:16 +0000

Shark
Thanks for the explanations. I thought this might have been your first EV but wasn’t sure enough to mention it. I should have realised the unique answer for 19a but by the time I eventually solved 11d I was wanting to make progress with the theme.

I should also have paid more attention to the ‘symmetrical name’ in the preamble but as I didn’t know that Fred Perry’s middle name was John the J would probably still have eluded me.

Thanks for an enjoyable puzzle. I look forward to solving your next challenge.

By: Shark

Shark — Sat, 30 May 2009 09:51:30 +0000

Thank you for your comments, you may have noticed that this was my début in the EV series. The puzzle was indeed meant to celebrate the birth centenary of Fred J Perry. His name is in fact symmetrical as it includes his middle initial.

The ambiguities have arisen as the published preamble was not the one I wrote. All the clashes are different (jw/vi/um/pb/fl/ge/yd/zo/sn) meaning IDYL could not have been the entry as it would double up with the L in Wimbledon. I had also stated “surname” in my preamble.

The completed grid also contained every letter of the alphabet apart from the letter T, which is the first and last letter of tennis racket. I wanted this written beneath the grid, but they did not allow it.

EILD may have had too many unches but it included 2 letters from Wimbledon, so I thought that was fair.

Lastly, the grid would have been completely 180 degree symmetrical if they allowed the pluralised form of aidos = aidoi. Unfortunately it is not directly specified in any dictionary except the search facility of Chambers CD ROM.

I enjoyed compiling this and I am glad many enjoyed solving it. Hopefully I will be back with my next effort soon

Shark

By: Dave Hennings

Dave Hennings — Sat, 30 May 2009 07:12:22 +0000

I found this quite a tricky puzzle, especially the top right corner. Fred Perry took me a while to find as well, with the ‘symmetrical’ aspect successfully confusing me. And I found drawing the head of the racket through the nine squares awkward … in the end mine looked as though it had been broken in several places!

By: Simon Harris

Simon Harris — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:23:00 +0000

I thought that this was rather wonderful. To my shame I hadn’t tackled an EV before, and really enjoyed this one, depite it taking up most of the week!